Red Rock West

1993 American film directed by John Dahl

Red Rock West

British theatrical poster

Directed by| John Dahl
Written by|

* John Dahl
* Rick Dahl

Produced by|

* Steve Golin
* Sigurjón Sighvatsson

Starring|

* Nicolas Cage
* Dennis Hopper
* Lara Flynn Boyle
* Timothy Carhart
* J. T. Walsh

Cinematography| Marc Reshovsky
Edited by| Scott Chestnut
Music by| William Olvis

Production
companies

* Propaganda Films[1]
* PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Distributed by| Roxie Releasing

Release dates

* June 16, 1993 (1993-06-16) (France)
* January 28, 1994 (1994-01-28) (San Francisco)

Running time

| 98 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $7 million
Box office| $2.5 million[2]

Red Rock West is a 1993 American post-Western neo-noir[3] thriller film directed by John Dahl and starring Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, J. T. Walsh, and Dennis Hopper. Its plot focuses on a drifter who is mistaken for a hitman while traveling through a rural Wyoming community. The film was written by Dahl and his brother Rick, and shot in Arizona, Montana, and Los Angeles in 1992.

The film premiered in several European countries and screened at the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival before being given a limited theatrical release in the United States, beginning at Los Angeles's Roxie Theater on January 28, 1994. Its release expanded in Los Angeles and New York City that spring, but the film was a box-office flop, grossing $2.5 million.[4]

## Plot

[edit]

Michael Williams is a drifter living out of his car after being discharged from the Marine Corps. After a job on a Wyoming oilfield falls through due to his unwillingness to conceal a war injury on his job application, Michael wanders into the rural town of Red Rock looking for other work. A local bar owner named Wayne mistakes him for a hitman, "Lyle from Dallas", whom Wayne has hired to kill his wife. Wayne offers him a stack of cash—"half now, half later"—and Michael plays along by taking the money.

Michael visits Wayne's wife, Suzanne, but instead of killing her, warns her that her life is in danger. She offers him more money to kill Wayne. Michael tries to leave town with her cash, but runs into a man by the side of the road and turns back to bring him to the hospital. It turns out that the hurt man had been shot shortly before Michael ran into him, and the hospital calls in the local sheriff, who turns out to be Wayne. Michael escapes but runs into the real Lyle from Dallas. Lyle and Wayne quickly figure out what has transpired, while Michael desperately tries to warn Suzanne before Lyle finds her.

The next morning, when Lyle comes to get money from Wayne, he kidnaps both Suzanne and Michael, who are trying to retrieve cash from a safe in Wayne's office. Wayne and Suzanne are revealed to be wanted for embezzlement, and Wayne is arrested by his own deputies. Lyle returns with Michael and Suzanne hostage and gets Wayne out of jail to retrieve their stash of money. The dig up the cash from a remote graveyard where Wayne had buried it, and a melee ensues, with Lyle being killed, Wayne gravely injured, and Michael hurt as well.

Michael and Suzanne board a nearby train, but when Suzanne tries to betray Michael, he throws the money out of the speeding train and then pushes Suzanne off to be arrested by the police. He remarks finally, "Adios, Red Rock". Michael notices and keeps a small packet of bills that hadn't blown out of the box car, and keeps riding the train.

## Cast

[edit]

* Nicolas Cage as Michael Williams
* Dennis Hopper as Lyle, From Dallas
* Lara Flynn Boyle as Ann McCord / Suzanne Brown
* J. T. Walsh as Kevin McCord / Sheriff Wayne Brown
* Dwight Yoakam as Truck Driver
* Timothy Carhart as Deputy Matt Greytack
* Dan Shor as Deputy Bowman
* Robert Apel as Howard
* Craig Reay as Jim
* Dale Gibson as Kurt
* Shawn Michael Ryan as Ted
* Barbara Glover as Jane
* Vance Johnson as Mr. Johnson
* Robert Beecher as Caretaker
* Jody Carter as Caretaker's Wife

## Production

[edit]

Red Rock West was filmed in 1992 on location in Willcox, Arizona on a budget of $7 million.[5] Additional filming took place in Missoula, Montana,[6][7] while the cemetery scenes were filmed inside an airplane hangar in Santa Monica, California.[6] Some interior sequences were shot on soundstages in Los Angeles.[6]

## Release

[edit]

The domestic rights to Red Rock West were sold to Columbia TriStar Home Video for $2.5 million and the foreign rights to Manifesto Films, a subsidiary of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.[5] Test screenings for Red Rock West were not strong and Peter Graves, an independent consultant who headed the marketing department at Polygram said, "The film doesn't fall neatly into any marketable category. A western film noir isn't something people can immediately spark to".[5] One of the producers suggested early on that the film be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival and was told by the studio that it was not a festival film.[5] The film opened successfully in theaters in Germany, Paris, and London in the summer of 1993.[5] It opened theatrically in Australia on November 19, 1993.[8]

Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the film in Paris and decided to show it at the festival in September 1993.[5][9] Bill Banning, who owned the Roxie Cinema and Roxie Releasing in San Francisco, saw Red Rock West in Toronto and thought that there might be an American theatrical audience for the film. It took him until January 1994 to find out who owned the rights.[5] The film had already played on HBO in the fall of 1993 and was due to be released on video in February 1994.[5] Banning started showing Red Rock West at the Roxie Cinema in Los Angeles on January 28, 1994, where it broke box office records before expanding to eight theaters in the city.[5]

It later had its general Los Angeles premiere on March 25, 1994, and opened in New York City on April 8, 1994.[1]

### Home media

[edit]

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released Red Rock West on DVD in 1999. Vinegar Syndrome released the film on Blu-ray through their Cinématographe sub-label in March 2024, featuring a new 4K restoration from the original film elements.[10]

## Reception

[edit]

### Box office

[edit]

Red Rock West grossed $2,502,551 in the United States against its approximately $7 million budget, and was a box-office flop.[2][4]

### Critical response

[edit]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 40 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Red Rock West is a hidden neo-noir gem with some delightful cracks in its surface – and an opportunity to see Lara Flynn Boyle, Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh go toe-to-toe in all their early '90s glory."[11] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[12]

In his review for The Washington Post, Richard Harrington praised it as "a treasure waiting to be discovered".[13] Writing in The New York Times, Caryn James called it "a terrifically enjoyable, smartly acted, over-the-top thriller".[14] Roger Ebert praised it as "a diabolical movie that exists sneakily between a western and a thriller, between a film noir and a black comedy," and gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four.[15]

## Year-end lists

[edit]

* 4th – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman[16]
* 7th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone[17]
* 9th – Gene Siskel, The Chicago Tribune[18]
* 10th – Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times[19]
* Honorable mention – William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer[20]
* Honorable mention – David Elliott, The San Diego Union-Tribune[21]

## Music

[edit]

The soundtrack for the film features a number of country music performers, including Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, The Kentucky Headhunters, and Sammy Kershaw. Dwight Yoakam wrote the film's closing credits song "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" when the film was being made and while the musician made his acting debut in the film. The song went on to become a Top 10 country hit.[22]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "Red Rock West". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on February 1, 2020.
2. ^ a b "Red Rock West". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on December 4, 2024.
3. ^ Silver & Ward 1992, p. 442.
4. ^ a b Gunning, Cathal (May 24, 2023). "15 Great Westerns That Bombed At The Box Office". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on October 9, 2024.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hornaday, Anne (April 3, 1994). "Film Noir, 'Tweener' or Flub?". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2016.
6. ^ a b c Monaco 2010, p. 80.
7. ^ Geiger, Chuck (February 26, 2014). "Another Movie About Wyoming, But Not Filmed in Wyoming". KIGN. Archived from the original on September 15, 2015.
8. ^ Paatsch, Leigh (November 19, 1993). "Contract Killing Western Style". The Age. p. 12 - via Newspapers.com.
9. ^ Monaco 2010, p. 81.
10. ^ "Red Rock West Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. March 1, 2024. Archived from the original on March 24, 2024.
11. ^ "Red Rock West". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
12. ^ "Red Rock West". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
13. ^ Harrington, Richard (April 15, 1994). "Movies; 'Red Rock West': Strange Turns on the Road". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 25, 2017.
14. ^ James, Caryn (April 8, 1994). "Review/Film; The New Boy in a Town Ruled by Coincidence". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 24, 2016.
15. ^ Ebert, Roger (May 6, 1994). "Reviews: Red Rock West". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021 - via RogerEbert.com.
16. ^ MacCambridge, Michael (December 22, 1994). "it's a LOVE-HATE thing". Austin American-Statesman (Final ed.). p. 38.
17. ^ Travers, Peter (December 29, 1994). "The Best and Worst Movies of 1994". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on December 15, 2024.
18. ^ Siskel, Gene (December 25, 1994). "The Year's Best Movies". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on December 29, 2024.
19. ^ Turan, Kenneth (December 25, 1994). "1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025.
20. ^ Arnold, William (December 30, 1994). "'94 Movies: Best and Worst". Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Final ed.). p. 20.
21. ^ Elliott, David (December 25, 1994). "On the big screen, color it a satisfying time". The San Diego Union-Tribune (1, 2 ed.). p. E=8.
22. ^ Bearden, Keith (August 1, 1994). "John Dahl". MovieMaker. Retrieved March 5, 2009. [dead link‍]

## Sources

[edit]

* Monaco, Paul (2010). John Dahl and Neo-Noir: Examining Auteurism and Genre. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-739-13333-0.
* Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth, eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (Third ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-879-51479-2.

## External links

[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Red Rock West.

* Red Rock West at IMDb
* Red Rock West at Rotten Tomatoes
* Red Rock West at Box Office Mojo
* Bright Lights Film Journal article

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by John Dahl

* Kill Me Again (1989)
* Red Rock West (1993)
* The Last Seduction (1994)
* Unforgettable (1996)
* Rounders (1998)
* Joy Ride (2001)
* The Great Raid (2005)
* You Kill Me (2007)

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